Learn about the Famous and Not-So-Famous people who make up the history of the great state of Indiana!
Stories from the Heart
Ray Rice
Co-Published By
Indiana Historical Society
WISH-TV Channel 8
During his forty years in television, Ray Rice covered and reported on countless numbers of stories for viewers in a variety of locations, including New York City. He found his place in the hearts and minds of Hoosiers, however, as a special assignment reporter for WISH-TV Channel 8 in Indianapolis from 1989 to 2002, writing and producing inspirational feature stories for the award-winning “Indiana’s Own” segment on WISH-TV.
For the Indiana Historical Society Press book Indiana’s Own: Stories from the Heart, made possible by a generous contribution from WISH-TV, Rice has collected fifty stories from “Indiana’s Own,” not because he considers them his best work, but because the people profiled in them are worthy of another look by anyone interested in being inspired by the best of human nature.
Rice’s more than three thousand reports during his tenure at WISH-TV showcased a variety of people from the state and across the nation. These stories include such tales as the simple life of an Amish family in northern Indiana, the heartwarming love of an elderly man for his two beloved dogs, a man’s large collection of historic military vehicles, the life and times of a baby left in a basket by an interurban railway station in Hancock County on Christmas Eve 1919, and the generous soul of an outreach minister driving a van known as “The Lord’s Pantry.”
“There was a time in my career when telling a hard-news story was my top priority,” Rice writes in his preface for this book. “Over time, however, it became apparent to me that my place was among inspirational stories. Even today I can remember any number of times when I was so personally touched by what was shared with me and the camera that I was certain the Lord had given me a wonderful gift—the opportunity to find the very best in people.”
125 pp • © 2003 • cloth • ISBN: 0-87195-169-X
The Diary of Elmer W. Sherwood
Edited By
Robert H. Ferrell
Published By
Indiana Historical Society Press
As a soldier with the 42nd (Rainbow) division in France in World War I, Elmer Sherwood was an observer with an uncommonly good judgment. If his descriptions lacked perfection they partook of an attractive innocence that brought out the truth of such battles as the horrendous Meuse-Arogonne offensive that took 26,000 lives.
“…a gem of a war diary. The author is a youthful but literate and incisive observer of the experiences of a huge number of his contemporaries who served in the Great War’s trenches. A new generation of readers will have access to this first-person tale of activities Over There.” Larry I. Bland, Editor, The Papers of George Catlett
208 pp • © 2004 • cloth • b&w illustrations • ISBN: 0-87195-173-8
1st volume in the IHS Press’s Indiana Biography Series
The Hoosier Tornado
Wes D. Gehring
For millions of movie fans during the 1930s, an actress from Fort Wayne, Indiana, personified the madcap adventures of their favorite form of screen comedy—screwball. Nicknamed “The Hoosier Tornado” for her energetic personality, Carole Lombard did as much as anyone to define the genre, delighting audiences with her zany antics in such films as Twentieth Century, My Man Godfrey, Nothing Sacred, and To Be or Not to Be. She also captured America’s attention through her romance with and eventual marriage to screen idol Clark Gable.
In this inaugural volume in the Indiana Historical Society Press’s Indiana Biography series, Wes D. Gehring, a noted authority on film comedy, examines Lombard’s legacy, focusing on both the public and private figure from her early days as merely beautiful window dressing in Mack Sennett silent films, to her development as the leading motion-picture comedienne of her time, to her tragic death in a January 1942 plane crash following a successful war-bond rally in Indianapolis. He also explores the rapport this sometimes “Profane Angel” (Lombard swore like a sailor) enjoyed with not only directors, but also the blue-collar workers who toiled on movie sets. The biography also features a foreword written by Scott Robert Olson, dean of the college of communications, information, and media, and professor of communication studies at Ball State University.—From Publisher
Gehring is clearly in love with his subject and details Lombard's life, times and some delicious backstage gossip with a historian's eye and a biographer's appetite for discovery.—From Publishers Weekly Review
Reviews
264 pp. © 2003 • cloth • ISBN: 0-87195-167-3
Third Volume in the Indiana Biography Series
Rebel with a Cause
Wes Gehring
On September 30, 1955, a budding movie star who had just completed a rigorous schedule that included three films, set out on a trip to participate in a sports-car race in Salinas, California. James Dean never made it to his destination. Instead, Dean’s silver Porsche 550 Spyder was hit head-on by another motorist. Dean, the actor from Fairmount, Indiana, had died. Dean, the legend, was born. Even today, fans of the actor make annual pilgrimages to Dean’s Indiana gravesite.
In this third volume of the Indiana Historical Society Press’s Indiana Biography Series, Wes, D. Gehring, a noted authority on film, takes a fresh look at Dean’s life, exploring the actor’s early days growing up on his beloved aunt and uncle’s farm in Fairmount to his struggle for success as an actor in television and on Broadway to his meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood. The biography also features a foreword written by Conrad Lane, Ball State University professor emeriti and a long time film essayist.
For too long, Gehring argues, Dean has been totally confused with the troubled teenager he played in movies, most powerfully in the classic Rebel Without a Cause (1955). The real Dean was a hardworking actor equipped with the clear agenda for success. The Biography examines how Dean consciously posed as an angst-ridden youth. “Indeed,” notes Gehring, “it was easily his greatest and most sustained acting job.”
303 pp • © 2005 • cloth • illustrations • ISBN: 0-87195-181-9
Lincoln’s Youth
Indiana Years, 1816-1830
Louis A. Warren
In this classic study of Abraham Lincoln’s formative years in Indiana, Louis A. Warren tracks Lincoln as he grows from an awkward boy to a serious young man poised on the brink of a brilliant career.
298 pp. © 1959 • 1993 • 2002 • Reprint • ISBN: 0-87195-063-4
The Life and Music of Paul Dresser
Clayton Henderson
Paul Dresser (brother of famous author Theodore Dreiser), called at times the “greatest of American popular song writers,” wrote sentimental music and lyrics recalling the days of youth, home, mother, and love. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and composer of “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away,” Paul Dresser’s life was a rags-to-riches tale.
“An excellent source study on the creation of celebrity and mass popular culture in pre-Hollywood….recommended for all libraries.”—Bruce R. Schueneman, Texas A&M Univ. Lib. Kingsville. Library Journal/July 2003
450 pp. © 2003 • cloth • illustrations • ISBN: 0-87195-166-5
Edna Mae Barnes Martin and the East Side Christian Center
Wilma Rugh Taylor
Christian activist Edna Mae Barnes Martin reached out to the African American community on Indianapolis’ east side and established a center to help the youth of one of the community’s worst ghettos by providing day care for working mothers, food and clothing to those in need and reform to so-called unredeemable youth. Through her work, Martin helped to break down some of the negative racial attitudes held by the community’s white residents and gained the financial backing of local philanthropists Edith Stokely Moore and John S. Lynn
198 pp. © 2002, cloth
The Life and Music of Hoagy Carmichael
Richard M. Sudhalter
Oxford
In Association With
Hoagy Carmichael remains, for millions, the voice of heartland America, eternal counterpoint to the urban sensibility of Cole Porter and George Gershwin. Now, trumpeter and historian Richard M. Sudhalter has penned the first book-length biography of this unique American composer.
Stardust Melody follows Carmichael from his roaring-twenties Indiana youth to bandstands and recording studios across the nation, playing piano and singing alongside greats Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and close friends Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong. It illuminates his peak Hollywood years, starring in such films as To Have and Have Not and The best Years of Our Lives, and on radio, records, and TV. With compassionate insight Sudhalter depicts Hoagy’s triumphs and tragedies, and his mounting despair as rock-and-roll drowns out and lays waste to the last days of a brilliant career. Drawing on Carmichael’s private papers and on interviews with family, friends and colleagues, Stardust Melody offers a richly textured portrait of one of our greatest musical figures, and inspiring American icon.
“ A thorough, well-documented portrait of the largely self-trained musician who began his life in poverty and emerged as one of the most important and versatile songwriters of the century.”—The Baltimore Sun
480 pp • © 2002 • cloth • ISBN: 0-19-513120-7
Cole Porter in the ’20s, ’40s, & ’50s
Volume 2 in the Cole Porter Centennial Collection. This volume covers the 1920s, 1940s, and 1950s.
158 pp. © 1999, paper. Black& White Illustrations
